Do First, Ask Later

Three years ago, I convinced Dan Koe—a multi-millionaire writer with millions of followers—to start a company with me on a Zoom call. I was a 20-year-old nobody.

Before that, I'd worked at three different startups and built websites for various clients, including world-famous pianist Bruce Liu. Yet I never went through a traditional job interview for any of them. I reached out to decision makers, solved problems upfront, and got hired as a result.

This approach eventually led me to co-found a company. Here's what I've learned about creating your own opportunities.

1. Solve problems without asking permission

Employers hire people to solve their problems. Everything else—degrees, resumes, cover letters—is just a heuristic to predict whether you might be able to solve problems effectively.

If you can solve problems without asking for permission first, you make employers' lives dramatically easier. Working with you becomes a no-brainer.

When I met Dan, he wasn't hiring—he already had a developer. But I offered value upfront anyway. I gave him tangible product ideas and pointed out where his dev setup could be improved. I didn't ask if he was interested in feedback; I just provided it.

That alone gave him the conviction to fire his dev and start a company with me. We cofounded Kortex and bootstrapped it to 100,000 user signups. Now, we're building Eden together.

Most people wait for the job posting, the interview, the invitation. You can skip all of that by doing first and asking for permission later.

2. You don't need to know—you need to figure it out

School trains us to believe that knowledge is king. You're rewarded for knowing the answers to test questions and penalized when you don't.

In the real world, it's less important to know the answer than to have the ability to figure it out.

When I pitched Dan, I pitched myself to the best of my abilities. I had startup experience. But I wasn't a senior engineer, and I hadn't shipped products at scale. What I did have was the belief that I'd figure it out—either by learning the skills myself or by finding people who could solve the problems I couldn't. Both paths lead to the same destination.

You will never feel prepared to start. If you wait until you feel ready, you'll be waiting forever. Everyone who's built something great started before they felt qualified.

Try, fail, and try again—with the conviction that you'll eventually figure it out. That conviction is self-fulfilling.

3. The internet is the great equalizer

Most people use the internet for consumption. You scroll, you watch, you read, without realizing how powerful the device at your fingertips actually is.

The internet gives you the ability to contact almost any human being on the planet by pressing buttons.

Think about what it used to take to gain access to capital:

Be born into a wealthy family
Have wealthy friends, or
Be insanely talented AND lucky enough to cross paths with someone who'd take a bet on a random 20-year-old in real life.

Now you can just DM them.

You have access to more knowledge at your fingertips than the president of the United States did 30 years ago. The barrier isn't access anymore—it's whether you choose to use it. The only thing you need to learn is how to become valuable enough to get someone's attention, and that information is freely available.

Stop using the internet just for consumption. Start using it as a tool for learning and creating.

None of this is complicated. Do things without asking permission, trust that you'll figure it out, and use the internet to reach people you couldn't otherwise reach.

Simple isn't the same as easy, though. Most people will keep waiting for permission, waiting to feel ready, waiting for opportunity to find them. The opportunity is already here—you just have to take it.